Women and Minorities in Policing

Throughout the history of policing the roles of women and minorities has been limited. Some roles of women and minorities throughout policing history include not being able to work a beat, not being able to be selected for higher ranking, Where there was a community made up of primarily minorities such as a Hispanic neighborhood more Hispanic police officers would patrol in that area and where there were more African Americans in a neighborhood that is where African Americans would patrol.

The role of women and minorities has changed by the selection process, jobs that women and minorities can do, how high they can rank, and areas that they would normally patrol. These individuals are able to move up to as high as a chief of police and it is not based on their gender or race, but it based on tenure and performance. Women and minorities are also not being segregated against within their force or treated differently. Such as, women having to use the same locker room as men and now being able to have separated locker rooms.

This role change has affected modern day policing agencies by making them more diverse instead of policing being dominated by the majority race and males. Individuals are not being hired based upon race or gender, but their ability to take the required written and physical exams as required.

Comparisons that can be made regarding the criteria for women police recruits and men police recruits are that the test are the same and not made less difficult for a man or more difficult for a woman. Both genders have to conduct the same test to prove that they are capable of doing the job and not being discriminated against because of their size. Both genders can work any job on the force and not some jobs are predominately male and other jobs predominately female.